Edexcel C3 Replacement Maths Paper

[KenR]

Anyone had students taking the Edexcel C3 Maths paper today?

It appears the they lost a box of the original papers http://www.edexcel.com/Aboutus/press-ro ... apers.aspx

but it seems the replacement papers were much harder and even suggestions in some quarters that some content wasn't on the sylabus!

The majority of students at my DS's school found it very difficult.

DS needs a A* for Univ and is worried that he won't now make it.

Tough times

[scary mum]

How horrid for them

I saw this on the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22887009

I hope they manage to sort out this so that it is fair to all.

[Guest55]

This happened last year to C4 ... that paper is doomed!

[ginx]

I'm an invigilator and apparently if any exam papers are lost, the exam board has a few "back ups" that it can use instead. All are supposed to be similar. ??

How horrid for those dc who did the exam. If everyone finds them hard, presumably everyone should be ok.

Good luck.

[KB]

DS needs a A* for Univ and is worried that he won't now make it.

Tough times

Would it be worth DS contacting the University now to make sure they are aware of the mess up so they might take it into account when they get the results through?

[Sallyltb]

DS needs a A* for Univ and is worried that he won't now make it.
Tough times

Would it be worth DS contacting the University now to make sure they are aware of the mess up so they might take it into account when they get the results through?

Everyone will be in the same position. The same happened for the Further Maths papers this year - my daughter had a replacement FP1.

[Guest55]

It's not the fact that it was a replacement paper - this happens nore frequently than people think.

It was a challenging paper which gave little spoce for weaker candidates to show what they know and can do. Even my A* students found it 'interesting'.

[daughter]

DD also sat this paper ... very challenging. She liked the fact that it was "trending" on twitter after the exam. I had a look at twitter -there were some very clever comments (as well as some straight forward moans) quite impressive in itself. I am hoping the grade boundaries etc will compensate for the difficult paper but i can see what G55 is saying that this will be skewed away from the lower achievers.

Core 4 tomorrow - good luck to all our DC in that.

[KB]

The other problem is that even some able mathematicians can be thrown by the upset. It is not the same as an Oxbridge interview for example, where they might be expect the unexpected. In this case they would have been prepared for a certain format of exam paper and can be thrown even if they would in other circumstances have be capable of tackling the questions.

It might be that the replacement paper was a 'better' test but the fact that it wasn't what was expected by this cohort makes it in my opinion unfair. I recognise that everyone was in the same position but there could be some odd results caused by students' ability to cope with the circumstances rather than their mathematical ability.

For that reason one might hope that Universities would look at individual results in detail where a student has just missed an offer that included that particular paper.

[Daogroupie]

I was speaking to a parent who has a ds impacted by this. He needs a A in Maths to go to the University of his choice and now he fears he will not make it. He said there were questions on the paper that were not part of the syllabus. Now he has lost confidence for the final paper tomorrow. Apparently a consignment of papers to Holland were lost in mysterious circumstances so the board felt the paper was compromised. Hopefully they all found it hard and the grade boundaries will go down. But it is so unnerving for them when they have worked so hard. DG